


i missed our little talks

by beeezie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Angst with a Happy Ending, But tl;dr fuck thanos, Crossover, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, M/M, Post-Endgame, Psychological Trauma, not sure where this is going
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:48:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29358243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeezie/pseuds/beeezie
Summary: vic and fred disappeared in the snap. their respective significant others did not. coming back is weird and messy, and there's lots of emotional trauma.
Relationships: Fred Weasley II/Original Female Character(s), Victoire Weasley/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	i missed our little talks

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [shenanigans](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4202808) by [beeezie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeezie/pseuds/beeezie). 



When Victoire woke up from what she'd intended to be a short nap, she felt a little disoriented. That feeling did not alleviate when she sat up; the couch was same, but there was a rug in front of it that she'd never seen before, and the throw blanket was a deep knitted blue rather than a fuzzy emerald green. Gazing around the rest of the room, she noticed other differences, too - the tv mounted on the wall was bigger, and there was a framed picture of her with her boyfriend and their dog Rowena on the side table next to her that she didn't remember being there before.

"What the fuck?" she said out loud. Then she heard her phone go off, and she snatched it up off the hardwood floor. She hadn't thought she'd plugged it in, but maybe her boyfriend had done it before he'd run out, and at least it hadn't changed - the picture that showed up was the familiar one of her with Gallagher that it had been for several months, and the ringtone was still his.

"Hello?" she said.

There was a slightly strangled sob on the other side of the phone, and her heart started to race. "Vic, is that you?"

"Yes, of course it's me - who else would it be? Are you okay?" He said something, but she couldn't make it out through the sob. "G, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

She heard him suck in a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was unsteady, but at least it was intelligible. "Yeah - I - I'm fine, I just - are you in the apartment?"

"Yes, but -"

"Stay there. I - please, _please_ don't leave."

"Okay, but what happened? Why is the apartment different? Where's Row?"

He was crying again. "I - hold on, I'll be there soon - we'll be there, I mean, she's with me -"

She asked what was going on again, but he seemed much more focused on asking about how she felt, if she was _sure_ she was okay, if she remembered when she'd last seen him, if she knew what day it was, what she _did_ remember... By the time she heard the key in the lock, she was starting to panic, and when the door swung open, she realized that something was very, very wrong. Her phone clattered onto the rug as they stared at each other.

She knew that this was Gallagher, and she knew that the dog straining at the leash was Rowena, but his hair was a little longer than she remembered, and his clothes were different, and Row was definitely older than a year and a half.

He dropped the leash, and the sheltie raced across the floor and clambered up onto her lap. "Hi," she said, pulling back and giggling as the dog tried to lick her face despite the growing sense of unease building in her. "Row, stop!

She glanced back up as Gallagher reached up to take the wireless earbuds out of his ears - when had he even gotten those? - and tossed them on the floor. There were still tears streaming down his face, and he was staring at her like it had been years since he'd last seen her rather than a few hours. He hesitated before coming closer, though. "Vic, I - it's me, I know it's - I can explain -"

"I know it's you," she said impatiently. "For fuck's sake, how could I not know it's you? What happened? What's wrong?"

He kicked the door shut behind him, closed the gap between them, and pulled her into his arms. "Row, move," he said, nudging the dog. She gave him a very reproachful look, but got off Victoire's lap to lay down on the other side of the couch, chin still on Victoire's leg. He reached over to pat her on the head. "Good girl."

The fur right behind Rowena's ears was as soft as Victoire remembered - at least that hadn't changed. "Oh my fucking _god,_ Vic," Gallagher said, and she looked back at him. "I thought I might never see you again -"

"Why? What happened? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Vic," he choked out, throwing his arms around her again. "You were the one who -"

"I can't breathe," she managed to get out. His hold on her loosened a little; her heart did not stop hammering. "I was the one who _what?"_

He took a deep, shaky breath. "Half the world disappeared," he said. "You - I ran out to get us coffee and when I walked back in, you - I _saw_ you turning to dust -"

She pulled back to stare at him. "Wait, I - I did _what?"_ It was clear from the expression on his face that he wasn't joking. "I - _what?_ How long?"

"Five years," he said. "I - it's been five years."

Her heart skipped a beat. "And you didn't disappear." He shook his head, and she blurted out the first probably-unimportant question to pop into her head. "Why is my phone still here?"

He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. "I - I thought you might come back. I hoped you'd come back. And I just - just in case - I just wanted to keep it plugged in, so I could call if you did."

Something else occurred to her. It was probably more important than why he still had her phone, and it had the added benefit of distracting her from the somewhat more consequential matter of her apparently vanishing from existence for five years. That was terrifying all on its own, so she was trying not to think about it. She was fairly certain that she couldn't keep avoiding the thought forever, but that didn't stop her from doing it right then. "Did you find somebody else?"

He let out a humorless snort of laughter. "No, Vic. I didn't. I thought you'd come back, and I - I just couldn't. I - _fuck,_ this is really you, right?" She gave him a look, and then his arms were around her again. "Fuck, I missed that look. I -"

His phone started to ring, and he snatched it up off the couch. "Hi," he said, holding it up to his ear. "Yeah, I just got back - she's here, let me give her the phone -"

She heard her father's voice as Gallagher handed her the phone. "Vic?" he was saying as she held it up to her ear. "Vic, are you -"

"Hi, Dad," she said. Now that the phone was pressed against her ear, she could hear her mother, too. "I - yeah, he just got back - he told me a little, I -" The phone started to buzz again, and she glanced down at it. "Hold on, Dad, it's Domi, I -"

"Give it to me," Gallagher said. He hit a couple buttons, and her sister's face appeared on the screen right under the picture of her parents.

"Gallagher?" the blond woman said frantically. "Is she -"

He passed the phone back just as her parents turned their video on. When she looked down at her sister, Dominique burst into tears. "I - Vic, oh my god -"

She'd only just hung up with them when her boyfriend's phone went off again. When she answered it, she saw her cousin's face on the screen. He looked exactly the same as he had when she'd last seen him, just before he'd gotten on a train to go home to visit his family a few days earlier.

Or whatever it really was.

"You too?" she asked. Numbness was starting to take over, and she was very, very glad to have Gallagher's arm around her shoulders and Row's fur between her fingers. There was something very comforting about the fact that her dog clearly hadn't forgotten her, even though she'd been alive without Victoire there for much longer than she'd been alive with her.

That was also not a comforting thought, so she refocused on Fred rather than let herself keep going down that path. She was starting to realize that there would be a lot of thoughts that would probably inspire a similar reaction.

"Yeah," Fred said. His eyes were red and puffy. "I - I guess Dad did, too, Mum's been sobbing all over us, Roxanne walked in a little while ago and explained what was going on - she didn't know G's phone number, I had to get it from your parents and then they were crying -" He glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah, Mum, she's back, she's fine -"

Her aunt's face appeared on the screen. "Vic? Are you okay?"

She ended up spending more than an hour on facetime with various family members and friends - by the time she hung up, she was feeling absolutely exhausted. "Why didn't they just call my number?" she asked Gallagher.

He shrugged. He seemed to have collected himself a little, although he hadn't let go of her yet. She was glad for that. "They probably don't realize that I still have your phone number."

"Wait, have you been paying for it for _five fucking years?"_

"Yes, Vic," he said patiently. "I thought - I wanted - I needed to be able to reach you in case you came back. When you came back."

Then his hands were all over her again - running up her side, trailing down her face, twining through her hair. Then he stopped. "I - wait, is this okay? I - it's fine if it's not, I know it's - it's a lot, and I'm - I'm different than you remember -"

She cut him off with a kiss. His touch _was_ a little rougher than she remembered, and there was definitely a layer of barely-controlled intensity underneath his hands and his lips and the way his body felt pressed against hers that was new, but at the core, he was very clearly still him, which was really what mattered. "Well, I mean, I didn't stop loving you in the twenty minutes you were gone, and it's not like you're _old_ now."

A faint smile broke through. "Tell that to my thirtieth birthday."

She stared at him. She'd processed that he _looked_ older, but somehow, her brain hadn't quite put those pieces together yet. "Wait, you're _thirty?_ I mean, I don't care," she added when she saw the shadow of a wince cross his face. "Oh my god, G, no, not like that, just -" She wasn't sure how to organize her thoughts beyond just being surprised rather than caring in some deeper way, so she went to something a little more straightforward. "Why didn't you move on? I just - I'm assuming because of the phone - because it's okay if you did -"

He cut her off. "I didn't. I didn't even try. It was just..." He trailed off.

"What?"

He took a deep, shaky breath. "I just - I'd just gotten back, and you were napping on the couch with Row, and you looked so pretty and I was just looking at you and thinking about how lucky I was and trying to get my nerve up, and then you just -"

Her heart had skipped a beat. "Trying to get your nerve up?"

"Yeah." He sighed. "And yes, I still have it, but I really, really don't want to talk about it right now." He was crying again, which made her want to cry, too. She couldn't really deal with what had happened to her, but she was starting to process what had happened to him, and it was enough to break something inside her all on its own. "It was - I was thinking that, and then you started to just turn to dust, and I tried to grab you, and my hands just... went through you." He tried to smile, and failed. "So yeah, it - it was just too much. That doesn't mean you have to - fuck, Vic, I'm not who I was when you - when you disappeared. It's been a hard few years. I don't even know if you'll still like me."

She blinked back tears. "I - oh, for fuck's sake, G, of course I still like you."

"Give it a couple months and then tell me that. It's really okay if -"

She understood why this was where his mind was, but she didn't have any interest in continuing this conversation, either, so she pressed her lips against his.

He responded immediately, and when she pulled back, the smile on his face seemed genuine. "I'd somehow forgotten about the way you cut me off when you think I'm being ridiculous."

"Well, it works, doesn't it?" His grin got a little broader, and it was finally starting to reach his eyes. "G, I love you," she said. "If you want to talk about - about everything - we can, but stop telling me it's okay if I don't, because I know that - it's just not relevant."

Despite her words, she really wasn't in the mood to talk about everything just then, so she started to trail her hand up his inner thigh. He groaned and leaned in to kiss her, and some of the anxiety she was feeling melted away when she felt his tongue against hers. "Oh, _fuck,"_ he gasped when she moved down to his neck. _"Fuck,_ I missed this."

"Is it too - I mean, do you want -"

_"Yes."_


End file.
